Lecture IX

From this fact you can imagine that oral communications in those ancient times were something wholly unlike those of our day. Even if we knew all these mysteries, it would be impossible for us to express ourselves now in words as it was possible in ancient times because in speaking with words we must speak with what they have become through language. Indeed, in words we have conventional signs. We can no longer go to the human being and, with the same power with which one could still speak of Christ in the third, fourth, or fifth centuries, cause a gentle tremor that was a healing force to pass through his soul by means of the words, “Thine angel holds thee dear.” That can no longer be done today; words have lost their ancient suggestive quality, their power. When human beings spoke to one another in ancient times, the power of human fellowship streamed from soul to soul. Just as we breathe the same air when we sit together in a hall, so did a spiritual power of what they were in common live in what human beings said to one another. As evolution has advanced, this has been lost. The word has been rendered ever less divine.